Quick--What would be a good flick on Afghanistan--one to educate the public?

[Jackpine Radical]

Our movie committee is meeting in a few minutes. I need ammo.

[likesmountains 52]

1. Documentary or ???

[givemebackmycountry]

2. The Kite Runner

Amazon.com

Like the bestselling book upon which it's based, The Kite Runner will haunt the viewer long after the film is over. A tale of childhood betrayal, innocence and harsh reality, and dreamy memory, The Kite Runner faces good and evil--and the path between them, though often blurry and sorrowfully relative. Director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) presents a painterly vision of Afghanistan before the Soviet tanks, before the Taliban--lush, verdant, fertile--in its landscape and in its people and their history and hopes. The story follows two young boys' friendship, tested beyond endurance, and the haunting of their adult selves by what happened in their youth--and what horrors befall their country in the meantime. The performances of the two boys--Zekeria Ebrahimi (Amir) and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada (Hassan)--are the film's strongest, unforced and gently evocative. The penance paid by their adult selves is foreshadowed, but never predictable--and the metaphor of innocence lost, a common theme in Forster's work, keeps the film, like the title kites, truly aloft.--A.T. Hurley

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

3. Sorry, no flick

but I'd recommend "Beyond the Khyber Pass" as reading about the foibles of worlds powers thinking they can dominate the mountainous little fiefdom called Afghanistan....... :)
This is a review.............

Rich in adventure, intrigue and treachery, this is the story of the British failure in Afghanistan in the 1840s, as England competed with czarist Russia for strategic advantage in Central Asia. Waller relates how the womanizing ways of garrison troops in Kaul (amid a xenophobic, deeply religious society where such behavior was punishable by death) was the "last straw" that caused the tribal chiefs to abandon their bloody feuds and declare a holy war against the infidel invader. The war found the vaunted British square formation, cavalry and artillery virtually useless in the high mountain passes where most of the fighting took place. The great set piece of the book is the awesome description of the near destruction of the 4500-man British Kabul garrison and its 12,000 camp followers as they attempted to fight their way to Peshewar. This first-rate history by the author of Gordon of Khartoum captures the savage grandeur of the First Afghan War. Photos not seen by PW.

[Enrique]

4. Rambo III

Rambo and heroic mujahideen freedom fighters kick Russki butt.

[obliviously]

5. You get two thumbs up!!

[Jackpine Radical]

6. If that "2 thumbs up" works in reality the way it does in my imaginatin,

it could be painful.

[obliviously]

11. ouch!!

[seemslikeadream]

7. "At War"

[Tempest]

8. The True Story of Charlie Wilson

It goes into depth about the Afghanistan war with Russia and the aftermath.

http://www.dvdmg.com/truestoryofcharliewilson.shtml

[frazzled]

9. Kandahar, by Mohsen Makmalbaf

It's from 2001 and by a very famous Iranian filmmaker.

plot summary from IMDB:

Nafas is a reporter who was born in Afghanistan, but fled with her family to Canada when she was a child. However, her sister wasn't so lucky; she lost her legs to a land mine while young, and when Nafas and her family left the country, her sister was accidentally left behind. Nafas receives a letter from her sister announcing that she's decided to commit suicide during the final eclipse before the dawn of the 21st century; desperate to spare her sister's life, Nafas makes haste to Afghanistan, where she joins a caravan of refugees who, for a variety of reasons, are returning to the war-torn nation. As Nafas searches for her sister, she soon gets a clear and disturbing portrait of the toll the Taliban regime has taken upon its people.

I saw it many years ago, and it was very moving. The Kite Runner is also excellent, as mentioned above.

[PufPuf23]

12. Barely beat me!! Good choice! nt

[HuckleB]

19. Kandahar was my first thought, too.

[PufPuf23]

10. Kandahar

Breathtakingly beautiful but heartbreaking.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283431/

[seemslikeadream]

13. Safaid Sang – Dari - White Rock

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-making-movies-the-afghan-way-1027758.html

[Towlie]

14. The Beast of War

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094716/

It's a great movie with George Dzundza, Jason Patric, Steven Bauer, Stephen Baldwin, and Don Harvey, about a Soviet Tank in Afghanistan in 1981. In this movie the Mujahadeen (which later became the Taliban) are the good guys and the Russians are the bad guys.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

15. I saw the play in L.A.--they had an actual operating tank on stage.

William Mastrosimone was the playwright.
It starred Philip Baker Hall.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Jesus. Even a small tank weighs in the neighborhood of 50 tons.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

17. I think it was built special for the play, I'm not sure.

The play was called Nanawatai and it was at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, must have been in the 80s. It was a very large stage & the tank was a loud and big thing that moved around just like a freaking tank. It was amazing.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. Wow, it SOUNDS like it was really something!

I bet everyone who saw it remembers that tank!